Devika Dhond, Poetry 2022 Shortlist

 The LOVE of inertia

Red

           Brake

                          Stop

Wet lanes of stalled buses croaking in silence

Dripping shelters of Chai stalls sandwiching scramblers

Autos curving their hips, poking noses in credence

Hustling gears filling cane juice tumblers

Hungry stray dogs- roaring humbly

Thirsty feelings- paused dumbly

Flyover pillars lodging organic eyes and nude vans

Red has always been a thronged menace

A law-bound hiatus, a repugnant captivation

The magic of realism in a clogged space

Thriving on the captor’s motivation

Orange

           Power on

                              Start

A pandemonium of propellants, a jet of adrenalines

No queues, only bundles, heaps, and clusters

Of silent clamours, of pleasing noises, of voice machines

All and sundry- Jacks, One-off self- master

Dead faces, remorseful races, selfish screens

This, a brief phase of opportunistic importunity -helmets crowned

Hoots speaking louder- words drowned

Pecking, patting, spanking, ramming- to each their own means

Orange is notorious for triggering paraphernalia

Driving eccentricity on rocky roads

One could sleep all day– personalia

The biological alarm never disappoints- an inevitable ford

Green

                   Jerk

                               Zoom

Finally, it’s show time, an overawed finish line

Unwaged Accelerations- Unaimed ten pin strikes

Fluent transitions, mood swing number nine

No strings taut, automobiles - hiking with the like

Panic prevails, swiftness triumphs fine

Happy hearts embrace

The drizzly breeze- a sunny freeze

Freedom- a levelled forehead crease

Green, hypothetically venerated for its liberty

Let’s call a spade a spade- factual sententia

But some cannot renounce to green’s positivity

Within them is found profound - The love of inertia

Devika Dhond, Poetry 2021 Featured Writer

Labyrinth


The Garb
of assorted fabric has
set the trend, the yarn unfused
almost unwoven,

Conflicting chiffons skin
the hollow lace-phony face
Denim frameworks-Velvet cores
Shrouded Entities-Cacophony halves

Gone are the days
of Tericots and cotton-silks

Two hearts, one soul
Tie dyes and ties that die
Are now the talk of the town
aftermaths
of a tortuous fusion
of discrete, defiant
‘Gray’ and ‘White’ labyrinths

Devika Dhond, Poetry 2020 Longlist

Augment

What am I, other than a pea inside the pod?

Thriving in my shell

Against the jostle of exponential expansion

The pod, was my warm housing, appended to me like skin

I was compelled to leave it, rather pulled out into

The loam of mother earth, where I now lay buried

Did anyone catch me fall to gravity?



By then, I settled into the tenderness of earth

It gripped me deep down within

My limbs sprouted off my core

In the hustle of dusk, my root wriggled beneath

In the yawn of dawn, my shoot peeped to rise

I endured the leap of growth, as infinitesimal as my size

Did anyone catch me surface the enormity?



By then, I saw no horizons of propagation

Inch by inch, dimension by dimension

Fostered in the hands of nature, to blossom

Silent, mediocre, incessant, my stretch

Surreal, yet, so real, my survival

Did anyone catch me augment my entity?



Catch me, if you can!

Poetry 2017 Shortlist Devika Dhond

Spices of A Spouse

Ketchup
Tangy tomato, heady tongue
Repelling, incessant tow
Hot sweet, chilly meringue
Love for brawl, brawl for love

Chutney
Culture, mixture, grounded
Suspended diphase, homemade
Green, orange, white, off shade
Vain unaided, miraculous with aid

Wasabi-Soya
Sizzling mustard, Horseradish, sushi
Rampant, pungent, fiery, teary
Sweetened ginger, damage control
Bored, Drilled, Drilled, Bored

Salsa
Dance, sing, blow, kick
Raw, Taco, Wild, Rooster’s beak
Fused, mingled, unified, whisked
Tossed, swirled, twisted, kissed

Mayo
Downy, illustrious, melt in the mouth
Fiddles run over the collar
Slimy, turtles, greasy tips
Leaps into the body, lips to hips

Poetry 2016 Thirdprize Devika Dhond

Bipolar

Erect to the paving the hive
Swarming the bees where amass
Slipped an electron then alive
Plunged on the tassel ALAS!

Followed then what
Fate, trait or taught

---

Crayons colossal those crusty colours
Sketches unremitting the canvas
Bolster the blues petty the pink flowers
Portly the pictures, skinny the carcass

---

Prose; that frenzy wordy rose
Thorns like letters punctured; a scuffle
Panicky rhymes; caricature of a pose
Devoured books of pages; a muffle

---

Gotten then down
Hollow the bowed crown

---

Bee--zzzzz then danced out; sluiced
Bare empty vacant, vale on the chart
Bleak, worthless my mind; bruised
Clutching the bloody freight; my heart

Prose 500 2015 Longlist, Devika Dhond

Slum Eyes

Yet another bus travel. Here in Goa, the buses wait and wait to catch passengers. It is contrary to the local train travel in Mumbai. Yet, Akin to the Mumbai Locals, Goan buses are a diminutive version of an assemblage of culture variants.

The gratification one gets to see the arriving bus empty, is unfathomable. I had the same contentment a couple of days back. My feminine instinct manoeuvred me towards a womanised seat. I looked and overlooked the fruit-salad of civilisations entering the bus. There were those annoying heroic men playing loud music on their ancient phones; the college teens were boasting out their frivolous personalities to grab limelight; the timid girlfriends were cuddling with their respective boyfriends; the housewives and househusbands were giving the passengers a fish-massage; the weary workaholics were dead to the world, like they would never wake up from their travel nap. The old aunts were waiting for a seat to be offered. Then there were some loafers who either ogled at or tried to get in touch!! The fisherwomen were snubbed as if they had no right to travel. Astutely, I could see a plethora of juggled personas. In this hotchpotch of mixed mindsets, the conductor tried the best packed arrangement, rolling us into spheres, taking our breath away.

There was yet another society that penetrated. The slum-world. The site workers who move with their giant families. The genuine rejoinder to them entering a local bus is “foul alarm”. Well we purport to be “clean”, don’t we? But do they deserve crooked faces for a mere travel, after sufficient troubles being bestowed upon them? Tough Call it is. I strive to strike a breakthrough at such issues.

The gush of the slum residents was enormous. The age ranged from unborn, newborn to 35. I was baffled, who was related to whom and in what way? They may have been 2-3 households. A toddler with superfine hair like the spokes of a cartwheel (girl, I concluded upon her dress code) stood near my seat. Those lush brunette eyes just stole away my eyes. She seemed to be in a muddle since the segments of her family were dispersed in the bus. She reassured her stand when she spotted her mother. She was beautiful, with features carved on a symmetrical facade. That pointed nose had peeled skin, those rosy lips were covered with muck, those chubby cheeks had lost their glow. Briefly, I felt she was unpolished gold. The intense grim on her face is so not found in kids. When I was fidgeting with my phone, she stared at me, not the phone. I could not interpret the dour. When she lost her grip, I held her. Her innocence overawed the stench she emitted.